Arunachal Pradesh will go to the polls on Monday for elections to its panchayats as well as the civic bodies of Itanagar and Pasighat, with the State Election Commission deploying more than 40,000 personnel to ensure the smooth conduct of the exercise, officials said.
Polling will be held from 7 am to 4 pm, State Election Commissioner Rinchin Tashi said, adding that all necessary arrangements have been put in place to ensure peaceful and orderly voting across the state.
Several seats have already been decided without contest. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has secured 58 zilla parishad seats unopposed, while the National People’s Party (NPP) has won one such seat. In the Itanagar Municipal Corporation, four BJP candidates have been elected unopposed. Additionally, 5,037 BJP candidates contesting gram panchayat seats have been declared elected without a contest.
For the remaining seats, 440 candidates are contesting 186 zilla parishad constituencies. In the municipal elections, 39 candidates are in the fray for 16 wards of the Itanagar Municipal Corporation, while 21 candidates are contesting eight wards of the Pasighat Municipal Council.
The State Election Commission said that 13 gram panchayat constituencies received no nominations, while nominations in 14 other constituencies were rejected during the scrutiny process. Polling for the Dumba Singpho gram panchayat seat has been cancelled following the death of a candidate.
A total of 8,31,648 voters are eligible to cast their ballots in the elections, including 7,59,210 voters for the panchayat polls and 72,438 voters for the municipal elections. The voting will take place across 2,171 polling stations for panchayat bodies, 67 polling stations for the Itanagar Municipal Corporation, and 12 for the Pasighat Municipal Council.
Tashi noted that women voters outnumber men in the panchayat elections. Upper Subansiri district has the highest number of panchayat voters at 58,764, while Dibang Valley has the lowest with 3,854 electors. In the municipal polls, Ward 19 of Itanagar has the highest electorate with 5,106 voters, while Ward 6 of Pasighat has the lowest with 812 voters.
To maintain law and order, the commission has deployed over 40,000 personnel, including around 15,000 polling staff. A total of 29 general observers have been appointed—one for each district and for the two municipal bodies. Special security arrangements have been made in sensitive districts such as Tirap, Changlang and Longding.
Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) will be used for the municipal elections, while ballot papers will be used for the panchayat polls. Counting of votes is scheduled to take place on December 20.
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